Hey all.
Reading some of the posts brings up the love/hate relationship the community have with the Official Collectors Club. I figured I'd start two threads, and really try to keep in productive, mature and hopefully helpful to the Club, should they read this. If you have some areas for improvement that you truly believe the club should recognize, chime in and share your thoughts.

I'll start.

I think the website needs a MAJOR overhaul. The site appears to be stuck in 1996, and would benefit greatly from a new forum, store and online payment system, newsletter and con registration.

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I would like to see a pre-order of the con exclusives so i can just show up at registration and pick up my big box of stuff without the long line.

Oh, the website needs to be worked on, and the newsletters need to be made available on-line again, even if it is one month after release.

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Agreed. While the lines can be what I call 'forced fun', because ultimately you end up making some new pals, it could probably become infinetely more effecient with a simple one hour meeting. Online payment would be the perfect start. I heard of this new thing all the young'uns is using, I think they call it Paypal. That would be a cheap, easy starting point.

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Can't do that. Everyone'll pay via credit card, and then dispute the charge after they leave the Con . I know that everyone signs for their stuff, but would that be enough proof for paypal to not refund the charge?

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The exclusives feature expensive packaging with exclusive artwork that adds expenses that the buyers would probably rather not incur.

They insist that they are the GI Joe Collector's club and get offended when they're referred to as Master Collector, the name of their website and newsletter.

Nothing they do makes me feel like I am part of a Fan Club. The camaraderie at their conventions is because of the friends I have made elsewhere, and the con is an excuse to get together.

The few events they run that are fan-oriented are riddled with problems, like the custom contests that don’t follow their own rules and the trivia contest that ended controversially because of how poorly run it was run.

They are regularly caught lying. From the annual new excuse for a price increase to the “they aren’t army builders, they’re Vipers with names” debacle, they are always feeding the community lines in the name of quick fixes.

It’s been said, but it bears repeating that people have complained about how archaic their website is, and yet they remove the online newsletter in favour of a full colour prited newsletter that is both more expensive and notoriously late.

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Prices. While I like teh product the prices seem overly inflated. This year's set price increase means we are paying $18 a figure.

I'll be blunt. The website flat out sucks. They practically hide information on it. The forum isn't horrible, it just isn't the easiest to use.

The newsletter not being available online or in an email. They announced a very important bit of information, the con date, in the newsletter. Luckily fans passed that around online so the rest of us didn't have to wait until it showed up in or mail boxes.

I don't blame the club when things go wrong like credit card machines not working, not enough buses to get people to an offsite dinner, planned vehicles not making it to production, or a trivia game not going the way it was supposed to, but I do blame them for not having a plan B for all of those situations. I know hindsight is 20/20 but sometimes I get the feeling they never have the foresite to have a back up plan.

Along with the pre-pay option I'd love for the club to have some knowledgable assistance helping with the exclusives. Last year I timed it and they were taking about 15 minutes a person to get the exclusive items. Part of that was the complicated form they were using and part of it was due to their volunteers not knwoing the products they were selling. It seems like this would be an easy fix.

Feedback. This is a difficult one so I'm putting it in both places as both a pro and a con. Sometimes it seems like they do listen and make changes that we ask for and sometimes we sit here and complain about the same problems year after year. I just don't know.

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Ya know, now that I think about it, it may be a generational thing. Brian is in the 50-60 year old range (I think), as are many of the 'older' 12" guys. Most of these people are probably used to buying and selling the 'old' way, thru publications like 'Toy Shoppe'.

And, back in December and January I decided to try advertising in the Master Collector newsletter (I'm sure you all saw it, right?!). I got a few calls from RAH collectors, but literally dozens from 12" collectors and ton of them asked me if I could mail them a catalog cause they didn't have computers.

As the RAH community continues to grow in size, and the 12" community retires or God forbid, dies off, we may see a change in the Clubs approach.

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How about keeping their customers informed in a timely manner? I just now got an email that the Con brochure was up. And we've known about it how many days now? For the money people pay, they need to start providing much better service.

As suggested earlier, preordering Con items so I can just pick them up there. Let us see & order the stuff ahead of time. We're the customer, we're paying for the stuff, don't dick us around with your "fun" little games. Information upfront, even if it's just a description of the items & a price list. You're a business, accept it, don't pretend to be otherwise.

How about just plain better planning for the Con? Maybe some organization for the dinner? Get enough seats for everyone "LASER BLAST"! You get a general idea of how many people will be attending the dinner through registrations, there's no excuse at all to not have enough seats. No, I did not enjoy sitting on the tarmac hunched over my plate, thank you very much. And kick buffet-style to the curb. I know it's probably asking too much, but how about a menu so I know if there's anything for me to even eat there? Maybe a little something on the order form? Are you attending the dinner? Check yes/no. Would you like the chicken or spaghetti? Simple. So some fat slobbering fanboy can't gorge himself on 30 helpings of pie, big "LASER BLAST" deal. Dinner, beverage, dessert, maybe salad. One portion for everyone, brought to them. I hate going to the dinner but pretty much feel I have to since I paid for it anyway.

I am a supporter of the collectors club, and I have to admit, Pluv makes valid points.

* a lot of the price points could be lowered without all the extra packaging. sometimes they forget a lot of collectors love the toys, not the packaging. Somthing tells me the removal of packaging into Baggies (they way Hasbro's mail order did back in the 80's) could cut the figre prices by a third. (as we see with the Boxed/ bagged Convention set price differencial)

* I was dissappointed with the removal of the online newsletter, the excuse was to stop the free distrubution of the newsletter, but thats the equivelent of trying to stop downlaoding of music. its the technology, jump on it or fall behind. whats sad is that there are ways to make the PDF unprintible (mentioned On the club's forum) and still nothing.

* part of the issue with the newsletter, is that they want to be the first to be able to release special Joe news, the problem is,.. they are notoriously slow in releasing news at all. quite frankly,.. with the anticipation of the movie, and its speculation of the location. 2009's con should be announced on the sunday of this year's con. also, is they have a direct line to Hasbro, why are most of the joe news being released through other toy websites. I mean hell, sometimes TOYFARE is faster...!!!

* I agree that extra convention goodies should be able to be pre purchased or at least pre ordered with your registration, that way, theyll be no sell outs, and they can see the numbers if they decide to order more.

* WHy the H-E-double Hockey sticks DON"T thay have a paypal account???? even if it was to advertize or sell some of the merchanddice thru ebay stores.


however, playing devils advocate here, what could help is offering some solutions to the problems. (yes I know they dont listen to all solutions) I asked several years to rotate the cartoon showing in the Courtesy room, even offered to bring my miniseries and regualr series Joe cartoons in to do so, and so far, they havent listened.



....oh, and although I agree many errors on last years dinner,.. I like the gorging, thank you. especially with the alternatve choices of food. (New Orleans cajun food buffet was actually pretty good) Im actually looking foward to a Texas barbecue buffet this year. Just make sure theres enough chairs!

...one solution to this (another solution I submitted after last year's survey) PART TIME VOLENTEERS

a lot of people dont want to volenteer because they feel theyll miss out on some of the convention fun. but I personally wouldnt mind volenteering for an hour or so with the childrens room (My teaching background might make it kinda fun) or at registration (provoded the volenteers get their stuff first)

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im bringing 2 tvs this year, ill have it on again

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This boggles my mind. I can NOT figure out for the life of me why a place like Hasbro would allow a "Fan Club" to NOT spread the word openly about their product, and the line that they "apparently" enjoy. !?!? Sure, an argument can be made that "People in the fan club paid for it"..... huh? Ok... So it's a perk of being "IN" the fan club?... Make a new perk... like a new message board for fan-club only members. Give fan club people a discount code to use for items - INCLUDING admission to the con. Give the fan club people the mailed newsletters about a week before putting the "online" edition out.

It's not "THAT" hard to put an online newsletter out on a timely basis. I should know.

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Thought, couldn't you still do a screen capture (like when we post our desktops)? I know there was a pics I wanted for my own enjoyment on several websites that have that kind of block and I grabed it that way more than once (No it wasn't dirty )

And this is the crux of the problem. Star Wars fans would NEVER put up with the crap that Joe fans deal with in terms of getting timely and accurate information regarding their hobby. Hell, Star Wars routinely shares press releases with MULTIPLE websites that all report the info at the same time. They get the same press release photos, newfeeds and other assorted goodies at the same time. They aren't punished for publishing substantiated rumours and pre-release photos from overseas. Joe news is treated like a state secret and steps are taken to keep it out of the hands of many collectors. Fundamentally, that is a problem. And, until it changes, this hobby will continue to have a basic "us vs. them" mentality that pervades every single corner.

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.....which is interesting, since the Toys are comming from the same company.

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Same company sure, but different departments both in house and in the marketing firms I'd think.

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